Fallout Episode 1 Review: A New World on Amazon Prime

Imagine a nuclear post-apocalyptic world. Everything you interact with has some measure of radiation. Most people live in underground nuclear shelters, eat canned food, and are probably deficient in vitamin D because they lack exposure to the sun. If you’re a gamer like me, you already know this world as the focus of some video games of the same name.

I was never a big fan of Fallout video games, but Fallout 4 was the game that got me. I played over 200 hours just on that game alone.

In this article, we’re going to dive into the first episode of the Fallout TV series on Amazon Prime Video. If you don’t have access to Prime Video, you can sign up for Amazon Prime Video here. This is an affiliate link that will support this website at no extra cost to you.

There are spoilers below. If you haven’t watched the episode yet, go watch it first.

Without further ado, let’s dive in! 

Lucy's Big Day: A Wedding with a Twist.

We begin the introduction to Fallout with Vault 33. This vault seems like a bubbly, positive community. We see Lucy during her application process to marry someone from Vault 32. It’s the perfect montage to show life in a nuclear shelter. I never considered it when playing the game, but vaults with Adjacent numbers might also be physically adjacent.

Lucy prepares for her blind wedding. Whoever she is marrying from Vault 32? That’s the first time they meet. It sounds a little bit like arranged marriage on steroids—and, unfortunately for some people, very relatable in 2024.

I already noticed something was feral about the guy she married the moment I saw him, but I did not expect him to try and murder her a few minutes after they had consummated their marriage.

That whole sequence of scenes of fighting with the raiders until her father needed to decide between the people and her was so graphic. Especially that mental image of lying down between two closing doors, followed by a splash of blood all over Chet—that one guy who has a crush on Lucy. In hindsight, he might have saved them all if his little plot of not opening the door had worked out for him.

One thing on my mind is figuring out who the woman who led the Raiders is. She said, “Everybody knows who I am,” which means she’s done this enough times to gain a reputation, or she is some public figure in the world above that this vault was disconnected from for so long.

Lucy manages to leave the vault without too much trouble. I doubt we’ll ever see any of these people again. Maybe her little brother? The one interesting figure in the story is her father.

When Lucy exited the vault, she was greeted with many sand bodies of dead people who missed out on the opportunity to enter the vault. These are people who were caught in the radiation wave and were supposedly turned to “dust”? Is that really something that happens when a nuclear bomb hits an area? It feels more appropriate that someone would be vaporized or burned to a crisp, but all these sand bodies make me question the physics. I know at the end of the day, it’s just to show the “aesthetic” of a nuclear post-apocalyptic world, but it should still be somewhat reliable.

The last time we see Lucy in this episode is when she sees a… “city”? Or maybe some kind of a settlement? There’s a Ferris wheel there. Maybe that would be our introduction to all those annoying settlements I never understood how to build in the game.

Gosh, I hope they dunk on the game and the bugs players faced.

Maximus’s Latrine Duty

So far, Maximus feels like a big crybaby to me. We are introduced to him as an initiate in the Brotherhood of Steel, where all those fancy metal suits that are so iconic to the games are used. But they didn’t originate there. They are actually also a relic of the pre-bombing era.

Maximus’s friend Dane gets promoted to squire and, a day later, is decommissioned with a severe injury to their foot. Someone was jealous about Dane being promoted and sabotaged their boot.

The storytelling makes it seem like the culprit is open to interpretation. I still believe it was Maximus even though he said it wasn’t, and they believed him and promoted him instead of Dane. It wouldn’t be a surprise that shitty people get away with doing shitty things in this world. And yes, I feel like Maximus is a pretty shitty person so far. Not because of how much Latrine Duty he got, but because of his treatment of people. When he gets promoted to a squire and one of the initiates hands him a paper, I can feel the satisfaction when he tells him, “You’re dismissed.” And when he’s being interrogated about the incident, he says, “I wanted it to happen.” So yes, you might not be guilty, but you’re still shitty in my book, especially since we’re shown that Dane is his “only friend.”

Maximus becomes Titus’s squire and is flying away from the base with him on their first mission together. I’m curious to see who this Titus is. So far, he hasn’t taken that Power Suit off.

The Ghoul’s Rude Awakening

The ghoul is going to be the most beloved character of this show. I call it. I’m writing these words after only watching one episode, and I could be totally wrong, but I LOVE his wit and ability. Killing three people who meant to come to hire you by threatening you in such a style was well done and fun to watch.

We didn’t see much of him as his was the last introduction in the episode and was shown only in that one scene where those people came to get him out of his coffin.

I’m excited to see more of him as the season progresses. He’s probably the only character that doesn’t care too much about surviving. He’s kind of a dead man walking.

Predictions For The Next Episode

This episode was an origins introduction. We know Maximus follows Titus around. But Lucy and The Ghoul might run into each other. It will be a good opportunity for Lucy to see some more of what the post-apocalyptic world has to offer.

I’m also intrigued to see whether The Institute will be mentioned at all. The Institute was the one faction in Fallout 4 that wanted to “heal” the world by any means necessary. They were evil, but they had a good aesthetic with plants and decorations that didn’t look ancient and ruined.

If you haven’t watched the second episode yet, drop your predictions in the comments below. What did you think about the pilot? I’m excited to see what people think about this show!

Fallout is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

Read the next episode's review right here.